html.skin-theme-clientpref-night @media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os }Withering—withering—all are withering—
All of hope's flowers that youth hath nursed;
Flowers of love too early blossoming;
Buds of ambition, too frail to burst.
Faintily—faintily—ah! how faintily
I feel life's pulses ebb and flow:
Yet, sorrow, I know thou dealest daintily
With one who should not wish to live moe.
Nay! why, young heart, thus timidly shrinking?
Why doth thy upward wing thus tire?
Why are thy pinions so droopingly sinking,
When they should only waft thee higher?
Upward—upward, let them be waving,
Lifting thy soul toward her place of birth:
There are guerdons there more worth thy having,
Far more than any these lures of earth.